Wrath of the Swirling Tides
by StealthMaster
Summary: At the Chunin Exams Naruto removes his mask of stupidity and shows the world what a true Uzumaki can do. Sas/Sak/Civiliancouncil bashing. Narutoharem
1. Chapter 1: Removal of an Act

**StealthMaster:**Hi there everyone this is one of the stories that I had made before but had to stop for concerns about this site's guidelines. This does not mean that I have stopped writing my other story ' The Consequences of Exiling Naruto Uzumaki ' it's just that in the chapter I am currently writing for it there are bits that I just don't like writing and so take longer to do. Also another reason why it has taken so long for me to become active on this site again is because I have only just started to get accommodated to university life and have only been in university for 2 weeks and all I can say is...

...Fuck who knew how it was this difficult just to be average.

Anyway onto other things I would like you to note that this is essentially a Naruto fic with Naruto having Ichigo's powers as well as a better utilisation of kido than Ichigo did. Also I will be trying to replace spiritual pressure with chakra i.e. chakra for kido and shunpo and other things the shinigami did in bleach.

Now onto the story and thanks a lot to all those who have reviewed, followed and favoured my other story, it's more than a story with just over 30,000 words would usually get...

* * *

**Chapter 1: The Removal of an Act**

It was 10am in Konohagakure no Sato, the day was nice with no signs of clouds and a bright sun showering the village in a bright light. The disturbing thing about this village though was the deserted streets that usually were always busy no matter the occasion, the reason, every civilian and ninja (except for those on guard duty) were attending the bi-annual Chunin Examination that was to determine which genin were the most suited for a promotion. Currently it was at the third and final stage before it ended, the first being a written test and the second being a survival challenge whilst also delivering two scrolls to a designated location.

At the moment the chunin exam stadium was packed with all kinds of people: civilians, ninjas, Kages and Daimyos, all of whom came to Konoha to see the potential chunnins that could be promoted from this exam. The stadium was split into three parts: one for civilians, one for ninjas between the ranks of gennin and jounnin and the last section was reserved for the Kages and Daimyos. The standing between the Daimyo and Kage have always been assumed that the Kages and Daimyos were equal in power...

...this is not true...

Actually the Daimyos were higher than Kages because the Daimyos owned the land that the hidden villages were built on, so if they wish they could liquidise the village and disband the ninja that resided there.

But enough about that and on with the story...

Sitting in the Kage box was the Sandaime Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, he was in his late sixties wearing traditional red and white Kage robes including the hat with the kanji for 'Fire' on it. He was considered to be very old when compared to most ninja, who mostly die by their thirties, and was hailed as the_ 'Kami no Shinobi'_ for his extremely strategic mind and ability to combine multiple elemental jutsu to make them more powerful. Said man was looking down at the potential genin with a bit of pride as viewed them standing to attention in the middle of the arena.

_'It would seem that the only participants are from Konoha and Suna.'_, the aged leader thought as he glanced at each gennin, observing them and trying to gauge their strengths.

On his left was a man in identical to him clothes-wise except his were blue and white, his hat had the kanji for 'Wind' on it and a piece of cloth that covered the bottom half of his face, leaving only his eyes visible. This man was the Kazekage and he ruled over Suna in Wind Country.

Glancing towards his fellow Kage Sarutobi couldn't help but be suspicious of the man. He normally didn't hide his facial features, so why the need for covering most of his face? The most logical and threatening answer was that he was hiding something.

"So Kazekage-dono how do you think your son Gaara will do against our Uchiha?", he questioned with raising an eyebrow.

The Kazekage didn't turn to look at Sarutobi but did reply in a slight hiss, "I believe that my son will do very well against your Uchiha but it will be a close match.".

Sarutobi's war instincts from the Second and Third Shinobi Wars kicked in when he heard the mention of 'son'. The Kazekage never called Gaara his son, instead he called Gaara 'it', a form of object instead of a human.

_'You are definitely not the Kazekage.',_ he thought and made discreet hand signals to his ANBU to pay attention to the Suna shinobi and give orders to the chunnins and jounnins to be prepared for an attack. This went unnoticed by the Kazekage who was paying more attention to the genin standing in the arena.

When the chunins and jonins received the orders they were immediately watching the Suna ninja like a hawk to see any signs of a possible attack, the Suna ninja not noticing their change in stance.

* * *

**_Down in the Arena..._**

The arena itself looked like a small clearing with bushes, grass and trees to make the battles more realistic. Standing in the middle of the clearing, in a line, were the genin that had completed the exams up to this point. The proctor, Genma, noticed the order given by the Hokage and tensed slightly before turning back to the six shinobi and one kunoichi standing behind him at attention, looking around at the attention that was being given to them. They compromised of three Suna nin and four Konoha nin. The ninja consisted of:

Hyuga Neji. Rookie of the Year before and supposed prodigy of the Hyuga clan. He was a part of the branch side of the clan as shown by the _Hyūga Sōke no Juinjutsu _placed on his forehead and was concealed by his hitae-ate. It was well known that he had a grudge against the Main house of the clan because of the death of his father. He constantly said that people were controlled by fate, that it was impossible to change and yet his fate was to be a servant to the Main house but he was trying to defy that by nearly killing the Main house Hyuga heiress Hyuga Hinata. Man what a hypocrite.

Next was Nara Shikamaru, heir to the Nara clan, who were famous for their shadow jutsu and extreme intelligence. He was known to be extremely lazy like the rest of his clan but also had their extreme intellect.

After him was Aburame Shino, heir to the Aburame clan. His clan were known to be emotionless, logical and used insects as their base for jutsu. In the Academy he was mostly alone except for his friends Inuzuka Kiba, heir to the Inuzuka clan, and Hyuga Hinata.

Following him were the Suna siblings: Temari, Kankuro and Gaara no Sabaku. These three each had their own specialities. Temari used long range wind jutsu using her big battle fan as a catalyst. Kankuro used his puppets to fool and kill his opponents through their complex mechanisms and his use of chakra strings. Finally Gaara's specialty was in the use of sand jutsu, through him being the jinchuriki to the Ichibi, to crush his opponents and shield himself from enemy attacks.

Lastly was Uzumaki Naruto, the dead-last of this year's graduating class. He was treated very harshly by civilians and ninja of Konoha because of him being the jinchuriki to the Kyuubi. His skills, as far as everyone knew, were abysmal with only high stamina, Kage Bunshin no jutsu and the Kyuubi's chakra being his known skills.

In addition to this there was supposed to be another candidate. His name was Uchiha Sasuke, the last _'loyal'_ Uchiha after his brother, Uchiha Itachi, massacred the rest of the clan because he wanted to 'test his power'. Since then he had been spoiled rotten and developed both an inferior and a superior complex, where he would look down on his peers and when one of his peers was slightly better than he was at something he would think that he was weak and start comparing himself to his brother. It didn't help that all of the females of his class (minus Hinata) became his fangirls, thereby inflating his already too big ego.

Presently Naruto was on the receiving end of the majority of the civilians and ninja glaring at him, showing him their obvious hatred for him because of him containing the Kyuubi. Honestly the civilians he knew that they had no knowledge on sealing so they had a very slight excuse for their misplaced anger. The ninja though did not have that excuse, especially those of chunin and above, since when a ninja reaches chunnin rank they must learn basic sealing so they should have been able to tell that he contained the demon not the demon in human form. In addition both civilians and ninja were given reassurances from Jiraiya of the Sannin and both the Sandaime and Yondaime Hokages that Naruto was Naruto and not the fox but they wouldn't listen. To Naruto this meant that if anything that happened to them was because of their treatment of him then it was on their heads not his.

_'They'll be in for a hell of a surprise when they find out about my heritage...well be reminded of my heritage.',_ Naruto thought with a grin that normally meant trouble for the future.

His outfit was completely different than to what people had dubbed the 'Orange Monstrosity'. In it's place was a black shihakusho with a white under shirt, white socks, straw sandals and a white obi tied around his waist. On his back was what looked like a giant butcher knife that was wrapped in bandages attached to his back and was almost as tall as himself. His hitae-ate was no longer tied around his forehead but instead he had swapped the blue cloth for a black one and had tied it around his left arm just above his elbow. Lastly his shihakusho had a crimson spiral on the back, the Uzumaki clan symbol (though nobody recognised it). Due to the clothing being quite loose people could see well defined muscles underneath that made some females drool. Everyone else though was rather baffled at the change in attire as they were used to seeing him in his orange jumpsuit. To most it looked like he had adopted a samurai look but in the end just brushed it off him trying to be cool or was trying to gain attention by 'being like Uchiha-sama'.

Naruto scowled when he saw the hatred that was being thrown at him, nor the rumours that were being spread that he had 'copied the Uchiha'.

_'Tch, shows that they are not fit to be ninja since they should know that people can die when they leave the Academy, that includes biju attacks. Also thanks to this and their clouded judgement they can't 'look underneath the underneath', heck even my sensei doesn't listen to his own advice. What a hypocrite.',_ Naruto thought angrily, more specifically at the 'sensei' comment, for you see his sensei was the 'Copy cat' ninja Hatake Kakashi, his official jounnin sensei and student of the Yondaime Hokage.

Now some may ask why he isn't fond of his sensei, well the truth is that just like the majority of Konoha he was hypocrite. He preached about how 'those who abandon the rules are trash, but those who abandon their friends are worse than trash', even though he willing abandoned him to train on his own with no sensei to help him. When Naruto had questioned him why all he said was that Sasuke was facing a tougher opponent and that he would need every chance he would get just to survive.

_'Kami's sake all he would need to do was last a little while against Gaara then give up, after all the promotion is based on the fight itself. Therefore if Gaara still tried to kill him then he would be intercepted by the proctor and if that didn't work then all of the other ninja that are stationed here. Plus didn't the proctor say that a candidate could win the whole tournament and yet still not be promoted? Also shouldn't Hatake have stopped to think that if I won my matches and Sasuke lost his then I would be facing Gaara later on.'_, Naruto mused with the scowl still in place. The only positive that Naruto had about Kakashi was that he didn't see him as the Kyuubi, but made up for that by neglecting him because of his poor chakra control. Even then he didn't say how he could improve his control as Kakashi expected him to know it already since Sasuke knew them. Problem in his deduction though was that Sasuke had numerous instructors that taught him how to control chakra, where as nobody (save Iruka) would so much as glance at Naruto yet alone teach him anything about control.

In addition to this negligence of his training his record was officially crappy when compared to others. It was almost always saying how 'lazy' and 'disrespectful' he was during the missions and how 'good hearted' his 'team mates' were, except for the capture Tora mission. The reality of it was quite different. On every single mission that Team 7 did Naruto would do most of the work whilst Kakashi took Sasuke off for private training. Sakura didn't help by saying how below Naruto was and high skilled Sasuke was, whilst sitting off to the sidelines. When Kakashi would come back he would ask the client how the team did. Since the clients were Konoha citizens they were very biased in their judgements. Praising Sasuke for not even doing anything and complaining about Naruto. Then because of Kakashi's laziness and want to keep Sasuke happy, he wouldn't argue with them and would report it to the Sandaime.

Now normally the Sandaime was very much liked by Naruto for the most part and Naruto could say he saw the Sandaime as a kind of surrogate grandfather. The problem here was that he was very trusting of his ninja of the rank of jonin and above. So when Kakashi gave his report about Naruto he would believe straight away and would look at Naruto in disappointment before cutting his pay and giving it to his team mates, despite Naruto's protests. Leaving Naruto with very little finance that he needed in order to pay for the highly inflated prices that the villagers specifically applied to him. It was times like these where Naruto would dislike the Sandaime though knew that he could do nothing about it. What really miffed Naruto though was that the cut out of his pay was given to his team mates and sensei. Kakashi didn't need it as he still had the money in the Hatake account that he inherited from his father and when he was an ANBU, Sasuke had the Uchiha account that he inherited and Sakura was still relying on her rich parents for her money.

So why the fuck did they need the extra money, where as he an orphan with no inheritance (yet) and had to face inflated prices for the worst of wares because of his status as a jinchuriki didn't?

What was worse though was that he learned that he was supposed to have an inheritance given to him when he became genin only to: a) not be told about it and b) the money that he was supposed to get had been 'invested' (in other words squandered). How he knew this will be explained later...

...but now he needed to be more focused on the current events. He tried to hide his anger but Genma noticed the scowl he had edged on his face.

"Hey kid, you okay?", he asked with a raised eyebrow.

All he got was a sigh and a 'yes' before he decided to start the matches...

* * *

_**Up in the stands...**_

"That BAKA! Who does he think he is copying our Sasuke-kun!", a pink-haired girl shouted, causing many around her to cringe slightly. Her name was Haruno Sakura, she was the supposed 'Kunoichi of the Year' from her graduating class, even though that term was used in a very light tone. In theory she was one of the worst kunoichi there. The skills she possessed were only book smarts and high chakra control. Her jutsu only included the Academy three: Henge, Bunshin and kawarimi. She was also the daughter to the civilian council member and merchant Haruno Sakyuo. Due to her parents treatment of her (more like spoiling her rotten) she became very shallow and would normally bully other people who so much as said hello to her. The main target for her abuse was in fact Naruto as he had constantly proclaimed his 'love' for her, to which she would respond by hitting him and calling him a baka. The only person who she was even slightly nice to were the adults and absolutely drooled over her Sasuke-kun. Plus her infatuation with the last Uchiha had caused her to forgone training to ogle her crush and go on diets, that greatly reduced her physical condition to below Academy requirement levels. In fact she wouldn't have graduated if her mother hadn't slept with the examiner, in other words Mizuki.

"Yeah what is that baka trying to do? Show up our Sasuke-kun? There is no way he can do that. Sasuke-kun is the best and always will be!", a blonde girl next to her said, agreeing with her fellow kunoichi. Her name was Yamanaka Ino, heiress to the Yamanaka clan. She too was just as weak as Sakura because of her crush on Sasuke, despite her father's protests that she needed to be trained in order to be able to protect herself from the cruelties of ninja life. Her retort had simply been that her 'Sasuke-kun' would defend her from threats, causing both of her parents to face-palm at the stupid answer especially when she used it when they were told that she wasn't even on the same team as the Uchiha. In spite of this, she was slightly better off than Sakura because she learned one of her family's jutsu: _Shintenshin no Jutsu_.

The other ninja around them were looking at them with disgust at how they would insult a fellow Leaf ninja just because he changed his attire, heck he had been told several times to lose the orange jacket and his new outfit suited him quite well so who were they to judge him for taking their advice. These people included: Hyuga Hinata, Inuzuka Kiba, Yuuhi Kurenai, Akimichi Chouji, Sarutobi Asuma, Mitarashi Anko and Inuzuka Hana.

Hyuga Hinata was the heiress to the Hyuga clan and part of the Main branch of the clan. Unlike Neji she didn't have the Caged Bird Seal on her, but had been constantly looked down on by her own clan for being 'weak'. This made her incredibly shy around people and she would often stutter when she spoke. She also had a crush on Naruto that was known by everyone except, apparently, Naruto. This only made girls question her on why she would like him when he was the dead-last and not the Rookie of the Year, Sasuke.

Inuzuka Kiba was the heir to the Inuzuka clan and was on Team 8 along with Hinata and Shino and Kurenai. His attitude was similar to Naruto's though his had a lot more arrogance than Naruto and he would often be taken down a peg by losing battles that he was so confident in that he would win. His jutsu revolved around his clan's two signature jutsus: _Gaatsuga_ and _Jujin Bushin_. He also had Akumaru his ninken that he would use as a partner in battle. His standing in his graduating class was close to Naruto's, except he was slightly higher because of his clan jutsu that earned him extra credit.

Yuuhi Kurenai was the daughter to a small civilian family that died in the Kyuubi attack and although she was a terrible wreck when the time for their funeral came she didn't blame Naruto for the being the Kyuubi's container. She specialised in genjutsu and was known for being the best genjutsu user in Konoha and because of her hatred of perverts she was also known for being one of the 'Ice Queens' along with Anko and Hana.

Akimichi Chouji, heir to the Akimichi clan. He was on Team 10 along with his team mates Ino and Shikamaru and Asuma as his sensei. His clan was mainly comprised of body enhancement jutsu that would increase the mass of a certain limb or, if mastered, increase their size to that of a giants' size. In Academy he was slightly bullied because of his weight but didn't let it get to him because of having Shikamaru as a friend. He was ranked as below average but still passed.

Sarutobi Asuma, son of Sarutobi Hiruzen and was heir to the Sarutobi clan, though he gave that right to his nephew, Konohamaru, when he joined the Guardian Shinobi 12. He was the sensei to Team 10 and was a frequent smoker. His specialty was combining his wind affinity with his trench knives to have a larger range.

Mitarashi Anko, ex-apprentice to the sannin traitor Orochimaru. She was treated poorly by most people but not as bad as Naruto was and give the impression to everyone that she was sadistic person by nature. This was not true as she just developed that nature into a mask so that people wouldn't pity her for being lonely. She specialised in interrogation, snake ninjutsu and traps. Also she was known as an 'Ice Queen' along with Kurenai and Hana.

Lastly was Inuzuka Hana, Kiba's older sister and was supposed to be the heiress but gave that to her brother stating that it was 'personal reasons'. Like with Kiba, she too specialised in her clan techniques only instead of having on partner she had three, the Haimaru triplets. She is known as the final the final 'Ice Queen' alongside Kurenai and Anko.

Together Hana, Kurenai and Anko formed Konoha's 'Ice Queens'. This was because they were deemed as very appealing to the male population but would constantly refuse to go out with them saying that 'they were taken'. Mostly everyone didn't believe this because they never saw them with anybody and being either romantic or intimate with them and them responding the same way. Also because of the male population's constant attempts at bedding them they would often end up in hospital with a case of abused manhoods.

Back to the story though, currently we find the so called 'Ice Queens' staring with a smirk towards a certain blonde that returned gesture with a wink that made small blushes appear on their faces. This confused the hell out of all the other jonins there but they chose to ignore it and turned their attention back to exams.

Deciding that it was time to start the matches Genma turned to face the gennin present. Removing the senbon from his mouth he showed a piece of paper with the contestants' names on it and who they were paired with.

_'Hmm, seems that Dosu guy dropped out. Means that instead of me waiting for my match at the end I will have to face that Suna nin with the fan after Naruto, Sasuke and Shino's matches...man this troublesome.'_, was the thought of the Rookie 9's lazy genius. It seemed that there was only a change to Shikamaru's match but the others were the same as when they were decided at the end of the preliminary round.

Everyone was brought out of their thoughts by the proctor. "Okay, now then I shall repeat the only four rules in this exam. The first three relate to how a match will finish either I will step in and stop the match, one of the opponents gives up or one of them dies. The last rule is that promotions do not depend on who wins the tournament, but on the quality of the fights. For example one gennin may win the whole tournament but might not be promoted, where as someone who lost their first fight may be promoted because of how they fought in their match. Also outside interference will result in disqualification. Understood?", he asked in a slight stern tone.

His response was all of the genin nodding in agreement. Sighing he amplified his voice with a jutsu so that everybody could hear him.

"Welcome everyone to the bi-annual Chunnin Examination here in Konoha! We will now start the matches! Now will everybody except for Uzumaki Naruto and Hyuga Neji please go to the contestants box so we may begin the match!", Genma's voice echoed amongst the crowd. Many people responded negatively to Naruto's name but cheered when Neji was called. Shouts of 'Slay the demon!' and the like reverberated around the arena, disgusting the small number of people who don't hate him.

* * *

**_Up in the stands..._**

"Cha! That baka's going down! There's no way he can beat Neji! He's only the dead-last that will amount to nothing!", Sakura shouted with Ino agreeing wholeheartedly. Some of the others though thought, 'Didn't she lose her match in the second exam, not to mention at least Naruto has Kage Bunshin no jutsu, whilst Sakura only has the Academy three'. It seemed that Sakura was quite delusional.

* * *

_**Back in the arena...**_

Neji smirked arrogantly at the praise he was being given. He then focused his eyes on the samurai-clad blonde that was staring at him impassively with his arms crossed in front of him. His smirk only grew as he imagined the amount of humiliation that Naruto would suffer by the end of the match. _'It'll teach him to try and defy his fate.'_, he thought as the proctor swung his arm down between the two and shouted "Hajime!".

For a moment nothing happened. The two just stood there one impassive the other smirking arrogantly. Figuring that he needed to make Naruto become sloppy he decided to taunt him somewhat.

"Tch, hello there Naruto. It's been a year since I last saw you. Failing the Academy again for the second time round.", Neji stated in the hopes of making Naruto angry. To his surprise and everyone else's he didn't even react to the jab directed at him.

Putting on a blank expression he tried again to get under Naruto's skin. "You know you won't win this. It's my fate to win this match and ultimately become chunnin, whilst your stuck as a lowly gennin forever."

…...

…...

…...

Still no reaction. The lack of response started to grate on Neji's nerves and in the end having the opposite effect that he wanted, because now he was getting angry and not Naruto. Before he could taunt again, Naruto spoke up first.

"You know Neji I think you're a hypocrite when you talk about how fate cannot be changed.", Naruto said as he closed his eyes and waited patiently for the response.

"Oh and why is that? Fate cannot be changed. Only those who are destined to be great can become great.", Neji replied with a slight hiss in his voice.

"And yet what was your fate? To serve the Main branch of the Hyuga clan, yet you defied that fate by almost killing Hinata in the second exam. Doesn't that make you a hypocrite?", Naruto questioned as he finally opened his eyes and made eye-contact with the Hyuga prodigy with ice-cold blue orbs that made Neji inwardly shiver.

Everyone else was shocked at Naruto's use of logic. For all of the time people knew him he was seen as a hyperactive idiot that wouldn't shut up, well all except four people. Shrugging off their shock they dismissed it as a small moment of intellect and went back to watching the match.

Neji was stunned at the blonde's proclamation. He hadn't thought about that. In fact it was quite true, but he wouldn't admit it. For if he did then it would mean that the dead-last was smarter than him. 'The nerve of him I'll show him', he thought as he activated his doujutsu, the Byakugan, and slid into the Hyuga's signiture taijutsu stance, the _Jūken (Gentle Fist)_.

"It doesn't matter. You will lose. You were fated to lose this match the moment I was selected to be your opponent.", he stated in an arrogant tone.

* * *

**_Up in the stands..._**

Anko, Hana and Kurenai all scowled at the arrogance shown by the Hyuga. Putting the blame on fate all the time. Seemed rather cowardly to them. It didn't help that the crowd supported him by cheering, sans them, the other competitors, Kiba, Chouji, Hinata, Asuma, Lee and Gai (who had just turned up).

"I see Neji is still shouting his unyouthful faiths Gai-sensei!", Lee exclaimed, dressed in a hospital garbs and leaning on a crutch.

"I do believe so my youthful student!", Gai responded in the same exuberant tone and flashing his 'nice guy' pose.

"Hai Gai-sensei! If I cannot rekindle Neji's flames of Youth I will do 1000 single-handed push ups!", Lee proclaimed.

"You got that right my youthful student. I'll join you and instead do 2000-" "Shut up!", Tenten interrupted Gai as he and Lee were about to go off into a tangent about youth. She in no way wanted to experience their 'Youth' genjutsu that would make any one cringe.

"Though I must disagree with them. I mean Naruto was the dead-last of our class. So I believe that he stands no chance against Neji. Especially after all the training we went through.", she informed then as she stared at the match.

To their surprise Anko gave a response. "So you assume that Naruto did not do any training over the month given to them?", she said rather coldly.

It was now Sakura who answered. "Of course he didn't train. Kakashi-sensei is training Sasuke exclusively so that he can beat that monster Gaara.", she said as she glared daggers at Naruto. Said teen was still in the same position as he was when the match started.

"That is where you are wrong.", a voice behind them said. All of the of current ninja talking about Naruto looked towards the voice to notice a white-haired man with a large scroll on his back stepped forward. Immediately all the ninja were at attention when they recognised Jiraiya the Toad Sage and one of the _Densetsu no Sannin_ _(Legendary Three Ninja)._

"Jiraiya-sama, what do you mean by that?", Ino asked, perturbed at what he was saying.

Snorting at the question Jiraiya replied. "The gaki found me by accident when he was walking to the hot springs to practice water walking. I took an interest in him when I saw him trying and failing to get it down-",

"Cha, see how much of a fai-",

"I WASN'T FINISHED!", Jiraiya yelled after being interrupted by the pink-haired kunoichi. Taking a deep breath he gave a small glare to Team 7's kunoichi before he addressed the ninja in general again and decided to continue.

"-It was then that I noticed that he had a seal on his stomach. Being a seal master I saw immediately that it was a _Gogyō Fūin (Five Elements Seal)_, a seal that is specifically designed to disrupt someone's chakra network and leading to that person suffering from poor chakra control. I asked him if he knew what it was and he replied yes and that he got it from Orochimaru, my former team mate, in the Forest of Death when he attacked Team 7. By the way why weren't Kakashi or the Hokage told of this? It could have been dangerous if it had been left alone.", Jiraiya asked the current audience.

Seeing that the only member of Team 7 was Sakura all eyes turned to her, silently asking for answers.

Said girl gulped before replying, "Well we did inform Kakashi-sensei but he said to ignore it as he needed to tend to Sasuke-kun's curse mark. Naruto then asked him what will happen and Kakashi-sensei replied saying that he would get rid of it after the second exam.".

Hearing this caused a lot of people to lose their respect for the copycat nin. Jiraiya though was gritting his teeth in anger at how his student's student was throwing all that had been taught to him out the window, even his friend's, Uchiha Obito's, and yet he still claims to follow it. Calming himself down he mentally noted to speak with the Hokage about Team 7, where he seems to be failing in terms of them and what needs to be done.

"Yeah well, he said that even though he knew about it he couldn't get rid of it. So I decided to help him out. I released the seal and the results were that he could now easily do water walking. It was then that I found out that the entire time he had been attending the Academy he was wearing a mask and that now he has finally decided to get rid of it. So what you see before you is the real Naruto. Also when he told me of how he was abandoned by his sensei to train the Uchiha I decided to teach him a few things.", he said as the entire crowd, minus Kurenai, Anko and Hana, were wide eyed and had their mouths agape in shock. The Naruto they knew was just a mask. If so then what was he truly capable of. It was then that Kurenai, Hana and Anko smirked at their reactions to the news, though there was one person who was not willing to admit otherwise...

"So what I bet he is still a baka, who can't compare to my Sasuke-kun! Even with Jiraiya-sama's training he will still lose! You should have trained Sasuke-kun instead and not that baka!", Sakura screeched causing everybody to cringe at the volume.

Jiraiya scowled at the banshee but didn't comment. It would be more entertaining to wait for her reaction after the fight was over. Speaking of which he glanced down to the two gennins still not moving towards each other and gave a small smile of pride when he saw his godson. The others, minus Sakura, saw the prideful look as he gazed at Naruto and thought there was more to it than simply offering training to cover for Kakashi's negligence or making sure the Kyuubi couldn't get out.

* * *

**_Down in the arena..._**

Naruto smirked as he heard what was being said in the stands. However he was disappointed that Sakura refused to see him as nothing but a nuisance._ 'Well can't win them all. Though I bet they would be shocked to see that Ero-sennin only taught me summoning, a few katas to the Uzumaki kenjutsu style and some seals that he himself created.'_, Naruto thought. Inside his mind he heard a deep chuckling from Kyuubi. The two were mortal enemies at first but after Kyuubi showed Naruto his memories about the attack and Naruto showed Kyuubi his memories of his life the two were became somewhat friends, though they would constantly tease each other from time to time. It was soon after their first meeting that Naruto found out that Kyuubi's real name was Kurama and that his parents were Namikaze Minato, the Yondaime Hokage, and Uzumaki Kushina, the_ Akai Chishio no Habanero_. He decided to keep the Uzumaki name but still be known as the Yondaime's son. That way he would be respecting both of his parents. Plus because Minato placed his _Hiraishin no Jutsu (Flying Thunder God Technique), his Rasengan (Spiralling Sphere)_ and all of his money and other jutsus in Kushina's Uzumaki clan account. The inheritance only included the name Uzumaki and even though the money had been wasted everything else was sealed inside the Uzumaki clan compound, hidden away by a blood seal that only Naruto would be able to unseal with his blood. Naruto himself had visited the compound but couldn't release the blood seal or else the Sandaime would have been notified. Then Naruto would be denied everything that was his in there since the Sandaime would say he didn't have an inheritance, then whether or not the Sandaime planned to give it to him wouldn't matter as it would give the Civilian council an excuse to replace him if he did give it to him. In other words it was a win-win for the civilians, either Naruto was denied what was rightfully his and they can squander it or they remove the only obstacle that is stopping them from killing Naruto for holding the Kyuubi through removing the Sandaime.

Putting his attention back to the fight he seeing Neji sliding into the _Jūken_ to which he gave a small laugh that confused the audience. He then slowly raised his right hand to grip the hilt of the knife-like zanbato. Neji tensed at the sight and inwardly thought, _'This makes it slightly difficult'_. While it was true that the Hyuga were known to be excellent taijutsu experts, this did leave them slightly vulnerable to kenjutsu users because of their need to get in close where as a sword could keep them from arms reach. _'No matter I am fated to win'_, he reassured himself as Naruto pulled the blade off of his back.

The blade unwrapped itself as it was drawn from Naruto's black. The blade was almost as tall as Naruto (nearly 6 feet) and was completely black except for the silver edge. In the middle of it being drawn the wrappings fell away giving 12 feet of loose cloth to dangle at the end. It circled round Naruto for a couple of seconds before shortening to only about 1 foot at the hilt (AN: Imagine bleach opening 5 when Ichigo draws zangetsu).

Neji mentally gulped at the sight of the huge blade. It looked like it could deal a lot of damage if it hit him, but swallowed his fear with arrogance. _'No matter he is still a dead-last. I bet he doesn't even known how to use it properly'_.

"Hey dead-last, do you even know how to use that blade? I bet you don't and are compensating for something?", he mocked as the rest of the crowd joined in with laughing at the blonde.

Said blonde slid into a stance that had him holding the blade with both hands in front of him with the edge pointing towards Neji. His bangs were covering his face so no one could see his face. Many of the Rookie 9 were slightly disgusted at what they were saying.

This changed when Naruto finally showed them his face. He had an angry expression that could kill the shinigami. Then they noticed his eyes seemed to glow a brighter colour than his natural blue. The atmosphere was tense, in fact the tension was so thick that you could almost cut it with a knife.

Then in the blink of an eye he phased out of sight. Neji saw Naruto disappear and started to frantically scan the area for the blonde shinobi. His _Byakugan_ caught sight of Naruto phasing back into sight above him with his blade swinging down in an arc above his head. Using his quick reflexes he jumped away a few feet, avoiding the strike that would have, if a second late, split him vertically down the middle. He felt a cold sweat run down the side of his head after seeing how close he came to dying, gritting his teeth he glared at the blonde who stood facing him, his blade resting on his shoulder. Said blonde smirked at him, oh how good it felt to shock people like that, he will never get tired of it.

"Looks like I do know how to use this, eh Neji? Oh and by the way the blade's name is _Zangetsu_. Now let us get back to fighting now shall we?", he said before vanishing again. Anticipating the attack Neji dived and rolled all over the place dodging most of the strikes that kept disappearing and then reappearing. Sometimes he would miss and sometimes he would get a small cut here and there.

Soon the pair stopped, Neji was breathing hard but Naruto didn't even look winded. Neji though then smirked as Naruto became confused.

"You will lose now that you are within my divination. _Hakke Rokujūyon Shō (Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms)!_", he shouted as he rushed towards Naruto at high-chunnin level speed.

Naruto seeing this quickly stabbed Zangetsu into the ground before Neji was upon him. To Neji's growing irritation however Naruto met him blow for blow. He initially aimed for a _tenketsu_ (chakra point) in Naruto's right arm. Naruto blocked it with his right palm. He then tried again with his left arm. Again Naruto blocked it, but with his left palm. He then tried again and again and again in the hopes of hitting his _tenketsu_, but alas it didn't work. For each strike Neji dealt Naruto would block with either his left or right palm. This continued until Neji finished his technique and put some distance between the two.

Up in the stands the Hyugas were outraged that the 'demon brat' blocked one of their most powerful attack. They then planned to convince the Hokage to execute the boy for stealing clan techniques in the hopes of this never happening again. It wouldn't do for a clan-less orphan to come up with a way to battle one of their best powerful techniques, especially since it would humiliate their clan to a lot of potential clients.

The rest of the contestants were stunned that the so called loser of the lot was seemingly better than last year's Rookie of the Year.

The present genin and their senseis (minus Kurenai) were staring in shock that Naruto the so called dead-last of their class was actually beating against the one everyone pinned to win the match.

* * *

**_Up in the stands..._**

"How's he doing that?", Sakura demanded as the battle raged on beneath her.

"I can answer that one.", Kurenai said as she stepped foward as everyone looked towards her, except for Jiraiya who was still watching the match since he already knew the answer.

"What do you mean Kurenai-sensei?", Kiba asked.

"Well you see during the month's training time Naruto approached me and asked me for any information on the Byakugan since I had Hinata on my team. I explained the basic mechanics of their bloodline and the kind of jutsu they used like the one Neji used on Hinata during the preliminaries. I asked why me specifically and he replied saying that he only knew that Gai and I knew about the workings of the Hyuga because of Hinata on my team and Neji on Gai's and since talking to Gai may do more harm than good he came to me.", she informed them as they widened their eyes in shock before they turned back to the match.

* * *

_**Down in the arena...**_

"What is that jutsu?", Neji demanded, panting due to exhaustion and wanting answers about the incredible speed he was fighting with. The speed technique was a very powerful attack, that was proven by all the close death encounters he had faced when dodging. In fact if it wasn't for the speed needed to do the _Jūken _and his extra year of experience then he would definitely be dead by now.

Naruto smirked at the frustrated look Neji was giving._ 'Well who wouldn't be. The reason he is still standing is because of his experience and even then he isn't missing all of my strikes. I'll humour him for the moment.'_, he mused as he went on to explain the jutsu.

Taking off one of his sandals and socks he showed a seal that was on the sole of his foot. Neji himself was no seal master but after looking at that seal he knew that it was more complex than what he had seen from his team mate's sealing used for throwing her weapons.

"This Neji is a seal that uses chakra as a force to propel ones self across a certain amount of distance in an instant with one step. Now then because of the step forward that is needed to do the technique I decided to call it _Shunpo (Flash Step)_ and the distance that is travelled is judged by the amount of chakra put into the seal. Therefore small amounts of chakra will result in small distances travelled and large amounts of chakra will result in large distances travelled.", Naruto informed Neji who was dumbstruck at complexity of the seals.

_'How the hell does he know fuinjutsu? It's the hardest path of a ninja there is, how does he, the dead-last know them?'_, Neji thought, baffled at the amount of skill being shown the failure of his graduating class. He wasn't alone in that thought. Almost everyone, except a select few, were thinking the exact same thing.

* * *

Up in the Kage box the Kazekage turned to towards the Hokage, confusion showing on his face as he thought about the current events.

"Hokage-dono, from what I have heard Uzumaki-san was supposed to be very lacking in skill and yet here he is making a fool of the dubbed 'Hyuga Genius', even countering one of their most powerful techniques. Do you have any idea of how this came about?", he questioned the old man sitting next to him on his right.

Sarutobi was also thinking the same thing. As far as he knew Naruto only possessed Kage Bunshin no jutsu, Kawarimi no jutsu and Henge no jutsu. _'So what brought on this change?'_, the aged old Hokage thought before responding to what the 'Kazekage' had pointed out.

"I do not know Kazekage-dono. I do not keep watch on my gennin during the one month training period, due to arrangements needing to be made for this event. Though I must admit it seems that Naruto-kun has once again surprised everyone here.", Sarutobi replied as he turned his gaze back towards the match at hand.

The Kazekage furrowed his brow into a scowl._ 'This could be a problem if he becomes too much of a nuisance in the future then he will have to be removed.'_, Orochimaru, disguised as the Kazekage, thought before also paying attention to the match at hand.

* * *

In the stands many of the spectators were stunned at how the supposed dead-last could have more than average knowledge in an area of ninja that was only excelled in by three people: the Yondaime Hokage, the Toad Sage and the Akai Chishio no Habanero (though nobody knew her name because she was an ANBU). To some of the extreme Naruto-haters they believed that the Kyuubi was trying to learn seals so that it could break the seal the Yondaime used on it and so that it could get revenge on them.

Jiraiya held a smirk as he stared at his previous student's son, proud of what he had achieved over the course of the battle. _'And to think that he learned that and other seals from a back-up scroll Kushina sealed and hid on Naruto's arm.'_, he thought only to wince when he heard a loud screech from Team 7's banshee.

"That baka! He must have cheated. There's no way that that dead-last could be winning against Neji!", Sakura shouted, causing multiple people to hold their ears in pain.

"Would you shut up! We can't focus on the match with you and Ino shouting!", Kiba shouted back, him and his sister in slightly more pain than the others because of their enhanced hearing. Taking that as an offence Sakura then proceeded to continue shouting but instead it was aimed at Kiba.

"Shut up dog-breath! Your only jealous that Sasuke-kun is in the finals and that you lost to the dead-last. Just shows how weak your clan are, what with having to rely on dogs to even be slightly useful!", Sakura insulted the young Inuzuka heir.

Now this made everyone (AN: yes even Ino) to shoot angry expressions at the pink-haired harpy. The Inuzuka may not have been an extremely popular clan like the Uchiha, but they did make up over 75% of the Hunter-nin division. In fact if it wasn't mainly for them Konoha would have a lot more missing-nins alive than now, staining their image of a 'perfect' village. Sakura though brushed this off with the wave of her hand and went back to booing Naruto and cheering Neji.

_'That banshee, what right does she have to judge our clan when her family has been trying to bleed all the clans dry of money. All because they believe that we don't need it, hell we've had to make cuts in our budget because of civilians claiming money from the council to 'fix' their houses after the Kyuubi's attack.'_, was the thoughts swirling in both Hana and Kiba's minds.

Jiraiya, who was leaning against the railing to the arena, became disappointed when he heard that. More specifically at his sensei. _'Sarutobi-sensei as much as I wish couldn't, I can't help but be disappointed in you, by allowing the civilians more power you have enabled them to bring down the value of our ninja. I can only hope that Tsunade-hime will do a better job.'_, he thought sadly. It had been Sarutobi's plan to retire again at the end of the exams and that Tsunade would succeed him when Jiraiya, and hopefully Naruto, went and retrieved her from where ever she was. The reason being when Hiruzen retired the first time it was the best time to do it as old age had started to take it's toll on him, now that he had been reinstated he couldn't work at his prime. It had led to many problems namely being a change to the Academy. Examples being corruption and a change in the curriculum to where only the Uchiha and Senju clans were mentioned in lectures, much to the Shinobi council's chagrin.

* * *

Back in the arena Neji noticed something else was amiss, but what he didn't know. He then caught sight of a small amount of smoke coming from Naruto's hands and it suddenly came back to him. Not only had he been fast but he had also blocked all of his strikes from the_ Hakke Rokujūyon Shō _with his hands. He gave a small sinister grin as he stared into the now confused Naruto.

"Hmph, even though you blocked all the strikes from my attack you still lost the ability to perform jutsu, judging from the damage done to your hands.", he said as the demon haters started to have hope that the demon was finished.

This was dashed to the wind though when Naruto burst out laughing, making Neji and the audience confounded. After all it wasn't common for people to laugh when he had been told that they can no longer use jutsu. Five minutes passed before he was able to get his laughter under control and stared at Neji with amusement.

"Check again Neji.", Naruto said before he showed everyone his hands. On both of his hands were seals that were different to the ones on his feet. It was then that Neji also noticed that it wasn't his hands that were burning but the seals. Before he could speak though he was interrupted by Naruto as he continued to give his explanation.

"These seals work differently than the other ones. Instead of pushing my chakra out they absorb chakra from any chakra-based strikes and makes it my own. Of course this doesn't work with elemental attacks since I can't turn the attacks back into pure chakra, but since the Hyuga only use a pure chakra-based taijutsu style it doesn't matter as I can absorb the chakra in your strikes. So essentially what you were doing was poking me and feeding me more energy. I call it the _Chakura kyūshū shīru __(Chakra absortion seal)._", Naruto spoke in an amused tone.

* * *

Upon hearing the explanation many people started rethinking about the supposedly 'lame' art of the ninja that everyone seemed to think was no longer useful in current era, aside from sealing supplies to lighten a ninjas' weight.

Well almost everyone...

"See I kept telling Neji and Lee about how useful sealing was, but no they said how useless it was. Well that's karma for you bitches!", Tenten declared with a slightly insane look that caused many to sweatdrop and take a step away from the weapon mistress.

* * *

Neji heard his team mate and also couldn't help but sweatdrop at how her declaration was slightly exasperated. Shaking his head to clear his thoughts he realised that he had already used up too much chakra and that he was close to exhaustion. He noticed though that Naruto didn't even look winded and that he still had a huge amount of chakra to use. It was then that it struck him, Naruto said those seals absorbed pure chakra and made it his own, add in the fact that he already had a large reserve of chakra then of course he wasn't winded. In fact to seemed apparent now that Naruto still had a lot to use and it seemed that he would lose the fight.

'No I am fated to win, he is the loser here.', he thought, not willing to believe that he was losing before he prepared to use his last jutsu, _Hakkeshō Kaiten_ _(Eight Trigrams Palm Rotation)_, despite his exhaustion. Naruto saw this and gave a sigh at both Neji's stubbornness and arrogance. Honestly Neji had used up all of his chakra and was still willing to fight, though he wouldn't scrutinise him for it. After all had the roles been reversed he would be doing the same thing.

He noticed how Neji seemed to lower his arms and crouch down slightly._ 'So he's going to use Kaiten then hmm, too bad it won't work.',_ Naruto thought as he stood back in his stance from the beginning of the fight, except that now he held Zangetsu above his head. A blue aura started to outline Naruto's body and Zangetsu let out a low humming sound before it started shaking slightly from all of the power that was about to be unleashed.

"I'll prove to you that fate doesn't control us! _Getsuga Tenshō (Moon Fang Heaven Piecer)!_", Naruto shouted as he brought Zangetsu down over his head in a wide arc from head to toe, unleashing all of the pent up energy that had been in the blade.

Now most people at the time expected the attack to either fail (demon haters) or for it to produce a kind of elemental attack (those who have a brain), but to both of their astonishments it was neither. In fact the jutsu created an arc of pure blue chakra that was rocketing towards Neji at extreme speeds, tearing the ground below it apart as Neji smirked again before spinning on his feet and creating a dome of chakra.

"_Kaiten!_", he shouted spinning wildly and using the last of his trump cards in, what he believes, to be a sure win against Naruto's _Getsuga Tenshō_. His smirk turned into a frightened look when the wave of chakra blasted through his _Kaiton_ easily and slashed at him without mercy. The only thing that the_ Kaiten_ did to help Neji was weakened the technique down to where it only caused a huge, deep gash on his body, from his left shoulder to his right hip. It didn't stop there the force of the move made a gale force wind pick up to the audience directly behind Neji, making them hold onto something if they were standing and everyone else to hold their faces to avoid dirt flying into their eyes.

After a moment's pause Naruto slowly placed Zangetsu back, the bandages wrapping the blade again as it secured itself to Naruto's back. As soon as his weapon was back in its original place Neji fell onto the ground on his back. Sighing Naruto used _Shunpo_ to reach Neji in order to assess his condition.

The sight wasn't very gruesome, but still it was a very nasty sight to behold. The cut itself couldn't be called that as it was long, deep and gushing out quite a bit of blood. His skin was pale from the blood-loss, his breathing was coming in quick huffs and his hands kept twitching from time to time as he tried to deal with the pain.

"H-How d-did you win? You were destined to lose, where as I was fated to win. How?", Neji rasped out as he clenched his fists in both anger and pain.

"The reason I won was because I trained hard to become better than before. Plus didn't you notice how I could easily outrun ANBU, yet had already failed the gennin exams once before coming to your class? All of those times you thought you were better skilled than me was an act I put up in order to protect myself because of a burden that was placed on me and let me tell you it was a burden way heavier than yours. Where you at least got to know a family and have people praise you when you accomplish something, I on the other hand had and still don't know the love of a mother or father and whenever I started to show any progress I was brutally beaten by most of the very people attending this exam. Now if you want to know of this burden of mine, as well as make your own path stop thinking that fate defines us and when you have earned my respect maybe then I will tell of the burden I bear.", and with that Naruto turned away from the bloodied Hyuga and calmly strode back to competitors' box, leaving Neji to dwell on what he said as the medics came to treat him.

_'I guess fate doesn't decide who we are. Only we can define who we are.'_, Neji thought as he stared at the back of his opponent and faintly heard Genma call Naruto the winner before he blacked out with a small smile on his face.

* * *

The crowd themselves were staring at the so-called dead-last that had defeated a prodigy with little to no effort in shock. However soon one by one they started to clap, the claps became more frequent, some cheering then followed and then the whole arena was shouting and cheering for the blonde. When Naruto heard these cheers he frowned a little. _'Hn, hypocrites.'_, was all the teenager thought as he stood next the female Sand-nin, Temari.

* * *

The other contestants were shocked and wondered about this burden.

_'I wonder if it's like Gaara's burden and when did start looking hot. Last time I saw him he was wearing orange for Kami's sake.'_, Temari thought with a blush.

_'Hm, so he was hiding his true strength. Things are about to become a lot more troublesome.'_, a certain cloud watcher mused.

_'Is he like Gaara?'_, thought a panicked Kankuro, who paled at the thought of another insane jinchuriki.

_'Buzz...buzz...buzz...Interesting.'_, Shino thought as he received a message from one of his bugs.

_'Mother wants his blood!'_, Gaara inwardly cackled at the thought of killing Uzumaki in the most brutal way possible.

* * *

Up with the Hyuga clan head, Hyuga Hiashi, he thought it was best that Neji knew the truth of his father's sacrifice. Glancing down to the Uzumaki he let slip a small appreciative smile at how much Naruto was able to resemble both of his parents attitudes by being as determined as his mother but still remained as calm as his father. Luckily no one questioned Hiashi about his expression as the Hyuga elders were too busy scheming about how to be rid of the boy.

* * *

With the Kages, Sarutobi gave a proud smile at his surrogate grandson and although the boy had kept his skills hidden away from even him he saw how his ex-student, Jiraiya, looked on at the blonde with a happy expression.

_'Must mean that he isn't dangerous if Jiraiya knows about his skills. Probably didn't want any chance of Naruto's abilities to be leaked out. I know for sure that certain...obstacles would occur if word got out that he was getting stronger.',_ he thought after seeing the glaring looks that were being sent towards the teenager by the Civilian council, though he was still upset that Naruto thought he couldn't trust him with the knowledge of his skills. Turning towards the 'Kazekage', who he had a pretty good suspicion was Orochimaru, he knew for appearances he had to question him about how the battle was conducted.

"So Kazekage-dono, what do you think of the battle? Personally I am proud of both gennin, but I must say that Naruto-kun seems to be the one for promotion since he used both psychology and tactics to defeat a Hyuga who was very proficient at the _Jūken_, many of which others have not been able to do so.", Sarutobi asked the 'Kazekage'.

"Hmm, I must agree with you Hokage-dono. Although the Hyuga does have chunnin-level tactics he is too lacking in the other skills. Uzumaki-san showed excellent use in Fuinjutsu, Kenjutsu and Ninjutsu, whereas Hyuga-san only showed such skill in Taijutsu, the only jutsu like the _Kaiten_ could be classed as Ninjutsu and he relied too much on his Byakugan .", the 'Kazekage' replied, though on the inside he was very worried about the boy now as he posed an even greater threat than before.

* * *

"HE MUST HAVE CHEATED! THERE IS NO WAY THAT THAT BAKA SHOULD'VE WON!", Sakura yelled, causing those nearby to flinch and wonder why must she always scream and not talk normally.

Before she could continue she was interrupted by a cough from the Toad Sage.

"Girl are you accusing my student of cheating? And if so how?", he said dangerously that everyone noticed meant trouble if the girl didn't give a valid reason. Saying that Naruto cheated was indirectly insulting the Sannin as a whole, something that was almost unheard of considering everything they had done for the village and the power they wielded.

"W-Well he has never won anything as big as this before. He always lost to Sasuke-kun in the Academy so it's obvious that he's cheating.", the girl squeaked out, a slight sweat running down her forehead.

Scratching his chin in mock thinking he replied, "Well now you said that he lost to Sasuke in the Academy, yet it has been over six months since then. Plus from my knowledge Sasuke had early training from parents, before the massacre, and some chunin and jonin. Naruto though never had any of those, only Iruka could help him and even then he could only give the same amount of training as he did others. Add in my training and it shouldn't be a surprise.". He knew that he had held back a lot of information, especially about how other instructors would try to sabotage him during his previous times in the Academy, whilst exaggerating others to make him look bad, but he couldn't allow them to become suspicious about Naruto's treatment until they were ready, though he doubted Sakura and Ino would understand the problems Naruto had to deal with.

Sakura had no response to that. Whilst she despised Naruto she couldn't afford embarrassment by insulting one of the _Densetsu no Sannin_, especially since it would reflect badly on her mother and the Civilian council.

Seeing the girl not responding he continued, "I thought that you were supposed to be the smartest girl of your class yet you didn't even pick up on those things. If you are the smartest I think the Academy needs to have its curriculum changed as it seems that the standards of ninja have fallen since Hana-san's generation (AN: Hana is the youngest of the adults there). I mean when I asked Naruto why he didn't pass he said that it was because he couldn't perform the low E-ranked _Bunshin no Jutsu (Clone technique)_. Now tell me this how could both students and teachers not realise the problem of having too much chakra and no control after saying he has a lot of chakra and yet didn't mention that this could mean that he wouldn't be able to use jutsu that required so little of it. Sounds like it's the Academy that's the problem, especially at the ranking system. Dead-last, Rookie of the Year, when they were introduced they were meant to be used to motivate people, Rookie of the Year was supposed to be a role model for everyone else, whilst Dead-last was supposed to be used to encourage that particular person to try harder in the future. They were not to be used as reasons to insult and praise each other. In fact you all think the Sannin were the top three students in the generation at the time. This is wrong in fact we were based the same way Team 7 was. Tsunade was the top kunoichi, Orochimaru was the Rookie of the Year and I was the Dead-last. Now look at us the so-called genius is a traitor, the top kunoichi is a runaway and the Dead-last is the most powerful and loyal of them all. You tell me if the Academy doesn't need to be redone.".

The rookies were shocked that one of the most powerful shinobi in Konoha was disappointed in them. It was a major blow to their pride that they were not considered at the least average gennin in his eyes, so in response many put their heads down in slight self-loathing. The others present did think that he was a little harsh but knew that they needed to hear the cold hard truth of a ninja's life, they themselves had tried to tell them but they had only assumed that they were exaggerating to try and get them to drop out. Their attention though was brought back to the arena when Genma started to announce the next match.

"Winner: Naruto Uzumaki. Now may Gaara no Sabaku and Sasuke Uchiha please come down to start the next match..."


	2. Chapter 2: Invasion and a new Hokage

**StealthMaster:** Hey there everyone this is the second chapter that many people have been wanting. Also the fourth chapter for my other story 'Consequences of Exiling Naruto Uzumaki' is close to being finished so just hold out a little while longer. In terms of the harem this is the definite list, so I apologise if everyone didn't get what they wanted:

Yugito Nii

Shion

Shizuka

Temari

Tayuya

Amaru

Yoruichi

Koyuki

Along with three others from chapter 1 (guess which ones).

* * *

**Chapter 2: Invasion and a new Hokage**

"Will Sasuke Uchiha and Gaara no Sabaku please come down to begin the second the match ..."

At the end of the announcement cheers erupted around the stadium at the mention of Sasuke's name, many eager to see the strength of their 'Golden' boy. A swirl of sand announced the arrival of Gaara as he stood at one end of the arena with a blank look, but if one were to look into his eyes one would see a glint of madness in them.

A few moments passed before, to the most of everyone's surprise, Sasuke did not turn up. It confused them greatly. Didn't the Uchiha want to show everybody the might of Konoha? A couple of minutes passed until people started to get irritated and started demanding he show.

"WE WANT THE UCHIHA!"

"WE WANT THE UCHIHA!"

Sarutobi sighed as he looked over the the people who were not very happy that the legacy of one of Konoha's founding clans was not on time for his match. It wouldn't reflect well on Konoha if it showed that one of Konoha's most respectful clans showed no shame in being late. After all clients wanted professional ninjas to do the missions they pay for. Why is it that Kakashi allowed him to be late despite the problems and possible disqualification it could cause? Just as he was about to stand up and disqualify the Uchiha he was stopped by the Kazekage.

"Hold on there Hokage-dono, surely we can postpone the match until the Uchiha arrives. After all most of the audience here came to specifically watch this match. The Kazekage's son versus Konoha's last loyal Uchiha. Disqualifying him will bring embarrassment to Konoha.", he said with a slight hiss.

Sarutobi looked sternly at the Kazekage before replying in a stone voice, "Yes it would be embarrassing to Konoha but by allowing him extra time also reflects badly on us. It shows everyone that we favour people because of their name, had it been say Naruto-kun who had been late he would have been disqualified as well, but that is not the case so if you would excuse me Kazekage-dono I have a gennin to remove from the exam and their high chances of chunnin along with it.". He then stood up and walked to the railings before using the same jutsu Genma used to amplify his voice.

"Due to not arriving on time for his match Sasuke Uchiha is hereby disqualified and the possibility for promotion is has been greatly reduced. Depending on his reason for being late will determine if he will face Gaara no Subaku at the end of the first round. If he still hasn't turned up by then or doesn't give a valid reason for being late then Gaara no Subaku will be the winner and will Naruto Uzumaki in the second round. Now will the proctor please continue onto the next match.".

The crowd muttered in displeasure at the decision but couldn't fault the Hokage for it. If a gennin was late to his exam without a valid reason then he didn't deserve to be chunnin. Unless he had a good reason, like being attacked before his match, although some were not so quiet with their thoughts...

* * *

"WHAT?! Why is Sasuke-kun being disqualified, he needs this promotion so that he can get one step closer to killing his brother!", Sakura bellowed.

"Well he is late, what do you expect? No matter who he is, these exams are supposed to determine who is best to be promoted to chunin and who isn't. Sasuke Uchiha, no matter how skilled he is, is no exception to this rule. He was late and it showed the exam boarders he doesn't care about being on time for a mission. This can be disastrous if he was say leading a team to support another on a mission and decided to be late for no apparent reason. The only way to be considered for a promotion now is to give a legitimate reason when he arrives, which I doubt considering his attitude.", Jiraiya explained with a confused look directed at Sakura.

Sakura frowned before muttering, "He still shouldn't have been disqualified.".

Jiraiya shook his head at the girl's childish attitude. If Tsunade becomes the Godaime Hokage then he'll talk to her about Team 7 and what should be done about them. As far as he knew Team 7 was the worst kind of team to this day:

Sasuke Uchiha. Known to have severe superiority and inferiority complexes, but was still allowed to be a ninja despite being a flight risk. Also quick to anger with the mention of his brother Itachi Uchiha and would be willing abandon or kill his team mates if it meant more power or if he felt them too much of a nuisance. Also a narcissistic.

Sakura Haruno. No practical skills as a kunoichi, good chakra control that brought a superiority complex with it, severe case of obsession with Sasuke Uchiha and has a habit of being violent to anyone she considers below her, including people who outrank her. She has also showed symptoms of having MPD (Multiple Personality Disorder) when she was younger.

Naruto Uzumaki. Uses a mask to hide his true abilities for fear of reprisals from both villagers and his team. Has a mixture of personalities of both of his parents. Calm when needed to be but not afraid to be very determined to succeed in the high possibility of defeat.

Finally there is Kakashi Hatake the supposed sensei of the team. Late to everything causing displeasure and wasting potential training or mission time. When he does train them, he trains Sasuke in ninjutsu, taijutsu and genjutsu, Sakura in genjutsu (though she doesn't bother to train in it) and doesn't train Naruto in anything on the basis of poor chakra control. In doing so he creates bad team dynamics by stroking the egos of the two most undeserving students and leaving one to fend for himself. The result of that made Sasuke and Sakura think that they could bully Naruto whenever they want and for the sake of keeping his mask up he had to endure it. Heck it was thanks to Kyuubi's rapid healing that Naruto didn't suffer any permanent head damage from Sakura's punches...

...Yep, definitely one of the worst gennin teams to date. Even in his team Orochimaru was at least willing to work with him when on a mission.

* * *

Down in the arena Genma nodded to the Hokage before addressing the audience again.

"Will Shino Aburame and Kankuro no Subaku please come down to start the next match..."

And so the other matches continued on as usual.

Kankuro forfeited his match. This led to many insults being thrown his way and for Shino and the other leaf genin to be suspicious of the Suna siblings.

Shikamaru and Temari's match was one of brains and not brawn. Leading to everyone being on the edge of their seats when the tables were constantly changing. In the end Temari won (AN: She is her shippuden age here. No way am I going to let her win by her opponent forfeiting who is three years younger than her) by using her fuuton jutsu to cause a tree to nearly crash down on Shikamaru, who was attempting his _Kage Mane no jutsu_ _(Shadow Imitation Technique)_ to restrain her. Upon her return to the competitors box she was congratulated on her victory by Naruto, causing her to blush at the praise and she secretly hoped that she could keep him as a spoil of war if the invasion was successful.

Once her match was done it was time to begin the second round. After everyone had had a 30 minute break to eat, drink or use the bathroom and for the competitors to recuperate slightly, everyone was back in their seats and waited for the first match to start.

"Now that the 30 minute break is over may I ask for Gaara no Sabaku and Naruto Uzumaki to come down to the arena.", Genma announced as said competitors came down in their own unique way. Gaara by a sand version of_ Shunshin (Body Flicker)_ and Naruto by a _Shunpo_. Seeing that they had both arrived Genma continued his announcement.

"Now Sasuke Uchiha has 5 minutes to show up and give a reason for being late. If he doesn't make it by even 1 second after the 5 minute mark he will be disqualified. He will also be disqualified if he doesn't give a good enough reason."

* * *

**_4 minutes and 59 seconds later..._**

"As he has failed to turn up Sasuke Uchiha is hereby-", Genma was interrupted by a swirl of leaves. The obvious sign of a leaf version of _Shunshin_.

When the leaves had dissipated it showed Kakashi Hatake and Sasuke Uchiha standing back-to-back. The silver haired shinobi hadn't changed at all, his attire still consisting of the typical jonin uniform. Sasuke though was the one who was different. His hair had grown slightly out, making it look more like a duck's ass, and his clothes were black (AN: His new outfit is the Chunin Exam outfit he wore when he faced Gaara so I am not going into detail about it).

"Yo.", Kakashi said nonchalantly, as if nothing was wrong. Genma got rid of the shock and stared annoyingly at the pair. Why the dramatics? It was not needed and it made Konoha ninja look like drama queens to all of the potential clients.

"Kakashi your tardiness has passed onto your student. Now please state your reason for being late. If it is not good enough we will have to disqualify you and instead start this match between Gaara no Sabaku and Naruto Uzumaki.", Genma stated calmly.

Both shinobis' eyes widened at the mention of Naruto. Looking around they saw blonde standing behind them with a scowl in place.

_'This isn't supposed to be happening. Naruto was meant to lose against Neji. That way he would be safe from Gaara, Sasuke would then face Gaara and be promoted and Naruto would use the experience for the next Chunin Exams. Then he would be promoted along with Sakura.'_, Kakashi thought, annoyed that his plan hadn't gone along.

"Dobe what are you doing here?", Sasuke sneered towards the samurai clad shinobi. He didn't like how the atmosphere was. It seemed like everyone was boring holes with their eyes into his skull, quite unnerving since he was used to praise and not criticism.

"I'm here to start my match against Gaara, unless of course you have reasonable excuse to being late then you will be fighting Gaara.", Naruto replied with a knowing smirk now showing.

"Well?", Genma said impatiently, wanting to start the match.

"Well you see...", Kakashi sheepishly said, trying to come up with a reasonable excuse. However before he could continue he was interrupted by his student.

"I needed to get clean clothes on.", Sasuke cut in rudely.

…

…

…

A good minute passed before everyone registered what the Uchiha had said and the reactions varied. The ninja, exam boarders, potential clients, Daimyos, the Hokage and the 'Kazekage' were disgusted with him. This just showed that on a mission that could mean the difference between life and death for a team, he would be late just for new clothes and thus put the team already in danger into more of a difficult situation where maybe one person would be killed. Sakura and Ino though were inwardly cheering at the fact that that their 'Sasuke-kun' looked cool.

Genma looked at the Hokage for the answer. His response was a shaking of the head, looking back to Kakashi he said in a stern tone.

"Due to not providing a valid reason for being late Sasuke Uchiha is hereby disqualified completely from the exam and will not be promoted to chunin at the end. Kakashi please take your student and go up to the stands please so that we may begin the next match.", Genma stated.

Nodding his head absently he motioned for Sasuke to follow him. The boy did but not before he did his trademark 'Hn', stuck his nose in the air in arrogance and attempted shoved pass Naruto in an effort to antagonise him.

Keyword being 'attempted'.

In reality when he tried to shove pass Naruto he ended looking like he had bumped his shoulder into a wall as Naruto did not even budge from the force. People openly laughed at this and made them think a little more about the two. Either their precious Uchiha was weak and his grades were exaggerated or Naruto was strong enough to repel the force. This caused the self-proclaimed avenger to go red in both embarrassment and anger before once again storming off to the stands, Kakashi right behind but casting worrying glances back to Naruto on the way.

"Right...now that that is out of the way the first match of the second round between Naruto Uzumaki and Gaara no Sabaku. Hajime!", Genma shouted before jumping out of the way as Gaara's sand rushed towards the blonde.

Said blonde used a _Shunpo_ to avoid it and reappeared standing on top the wall opposite them looking down at Gaara with a pitying expression that made Gaara absolutely mental. How dare he show pity on him.

"Die Uzumaki!", he shouted as two tendrils tried to crush the blonde from either side.

Seeing the movement Naruto quickly used _Shunpo_ to escape from being trapped and for next couple of minutes it seemed that the battle was at a stalemate. Gaara couldn't catch the blonde as he would use_ Shunpo_ as soon as his sand got too close for comfort. On the other hand though neither was Naruto winning as the sand tendrils were always upon him as soon as he reappeared from using a _Shunpo_ and would have to use it again to avoid them again before he could even make an attack. Despite this Naruto was more calm than Gaara as he was getting frustrated at not being able capture him.

"Come on Uzumaki, fight me! Prove my existence!", Gaara cackled as more and more tendrils came racing towards the blonde, intent on crushing him to dust.

"Fine then."

That small statement caused everyone to freeze as they heard the voice from behind the redhead. Gaara turned his head to the right to see behind him another Naruto standing with an impassive look edged on his whiskered face. Looking down the redhead saw Naruto's right index finger touching his clothed right shoulder-blade. Naruto then uttered four words that would haunt the Ichibi's container for a long time.

"_Hadō No. 4: Byakurai! (Way of Destruction No. 4: Pale Lightening!)_", a white glow appeared on the finger of the Naruto behind Gaara before the sound of lightening startled the audience, especially one Kakashi Hatake.

_'How does he know Raiton, I never taught him that.'_, Kakashi thought as Gai observed him wondering if Kakashi taught Naruto something similar to_ Chidori (One Thousand Birds)_, but brushed that off when he remembered that Kakashi didn't teach Naruto anything other than tree-climbing.

The glow then had sparks gathering around it before shooting a large white lightening bolt that pierced Gaara's shoulder-blade and carried on until it hit the arena wall, leaving a small crater in its place.

For a moment nothing happened until Gaara felt a warm liquid slide down his arm. Glancing at it he saw the liquid to be red, indicating that it was blood. He touched it with his left hand and pulled it in front of him to get a closer look at it.

"This...is...my...blood.", Gaara whispered with small pauses as it finally dawned on him that he had been wounded for the first time in his life. It was then that the pain shot through him for the first time in his life and clutched his shoulder with his left hand in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding.

"THIS IS MY BLOOD!", he shouted to the heavens as a sphere of sand formed around him, blocking him everything else and destroying the _Kage Bunshin_ that had fired the _Kidō _through his shoulder.

"Oh no, he's already turning.", Temari gasped as she and her brother jumped down into the arena to stop anyone else from interfering.

It was then that two things happened. One a genjutsu was placed on everyone in the stadium to make them sleep and two a smoke bomb was set off in the kage box, obscuring everyone's vision of the kages.

* * *

"Genjutsu.", Kurenai whispered as she immediately dispelled the illusion on herself. Looking around she saw that all those of chunin rank, above that and some of the genin had also dispelled the genjutsu. The chunin and those above were already fighting both Oto and Suna shinobi in the stadium, whilst the genin that had been able to dispel the genjutsu were waking up the others who didn't dispel it. Once they were all awake she signalled them over to her for orders.

"Okay your orders are to evacuate the civilians and other non-ninja personnel. Also for the moment we are at war with both Oto and Suna so you will need to fight them if they get in your way. Be careful of any enemies and also do not forget your mission, which is to evacuate all non-ninja personnel. Any genin who doesn't obey this will be reported when this invasion is over. Understood?", she commanded, receiving numerous nods in response, though Sasuke's was reluctantly.

* * *

Up with the kages the Kazekage had the Hokage hostage with a kunai poised at the elderly man's neck.

"So you finally decided to settle our quarrel Orochimaru.", Sarutobi muttered, looking forward and in a relax posture, as if he wasn't even being held hostage.

"Ku, ku, ku, ku. So you figured it out old man. How did you know that I was the Kazekage?", Orochimaru hissed as he pulled off the skin mask of the Kazekage to reveal his smirking pale face, long tongue and golden snake eyes.

"I noticed you because the Kazekage doesn't normally wear a mask to hide his face, nor does he call Gaara his son. When you made those two flaws I knew that it was you. Plus the fact that you wanted Sasuke to participate so much finalised my conclusion.", Sarutobi replied as he heard a chuckle come from his former student.

"Ku, ku, ku, ku. Yes well it doesn't matter since you are going to die now anyway. Ku, ku, ku, ku, goodbye Sarutobi-sensei.", Orochimaru said as he slit the Hokage's throat and dropped the corpse wanting to see it fall to the ground.

Only for it to pop into a cloud of smoke.

"WHAT!", the snake summoner yelled as he saw the smoke only to be hit in the face and forced away to the other side of the building.

_'What was that?'_, he thought as he got a good look at his assailant.

In his place was Hiruzen in his old battlefield garb. It consisted of an all black outfit a black top, with black trousers and a black shinobi-adapted samurai helmet. On his right forearm was a light-brown bracer that covered up to his elbow, he had fish stockings on his left wrist and both of his shins. His footwear was a pair of more flexible black shinobi sandals, his helmet had a black bandanna on with two pieces of cloth running down the back to his feet and had a Konoha hitai-ate on his forehead. On his back was a grey piece of fabric with the kanji for 'fire' showing. Finally in his hands was a transformed King Enma in his _Kongonyoi (Adamantine Staff)_ form. His expression was one of pity that infuriated Orochimaru.

"How did you escape you old man? I had you hostage there and I prevented you from doing any jutsu.", Orochimaru exclaimed, shock showing on his face.

"_Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (Shadow Clone Technique)_ and _Kawarimi no Jutsu (Body Replacement Technique)_. I made a clone of myself and switched with it whilst you were paying attention to the exams. Now lets finish this once and for all.", Sarutobi said as he and Orochimaru commenced a battle that would be written in the history books with only one coming out as the victor.

* * *

**_With Naruto..._**

Naruto was paying more attention to Gaara than anywhere else as the dome started to crack and sand started to fall, revealing a changed Gaara. Upon seeing this both Kankuro and Temari ran off, leaving a confused Naruto.

_'What the hell?'_, Naruto thought as he saw the sand now covering Gaara's body.

The sand completely morphed his head to look like a tanuki, the rest was over his body so that he had a tail that could wrap around him completely and two claws longer than his body, leaving only his legs uncovered. The sand also had blue like veins spread all over and the eyes were yellow with a plus symbol for the pupil with four dots in each corner. He grinned when his gazed lingered on Naruto, showing a set of large pointed teeth.

"Ah, Uzumaki you will prove to me my existence!", he cackled as he sent one of his claws at the blonde in an effort to trap him again and just as before he was avoided as Naruto used _Shunpo_ to appear behind him.

Naruto pulled back Zangetsu over his head as he prepared to use _Getsuga Tenshō_ on his unguarded back.

_'Hopefully this will work.'_

"_Suna Shuriken! (Sand Shuriken!)_", Gaara announced as he swung his whole body in a semicircle to the right, swinging his sand encased left arm in front of him as sand shuriken erupted from him and at the blonde now in front of him at velocities.

_'Shit!'_, Naruto inwardly yelled as he used _Shunpo_ again to avoid the shuriken that missed him by a whisker before returning to the Shukaku-enhanced Gaara.

"That trick won't work on me this time Uzumaki!", Gaara shouted, laughing maniacally as he saw the difficulty the blonde was in.

Putting some ground between himself and the insane jinchuriki Naruto raised his left empty palm to face towards Gaara.

"_Bakudō No. 9: Geki! (Way of Binding No 9: Strike!)_", a red aura outlined Gaara's transformed state, paralysing him and preventing him from making any more jutsu.

"Arg, arg, U-Uzuma-maki.", Gaara grounded out with venom as he tried to move, but couldn't even with his full strength. Upon seeing Gaara restrained Naruto let out a sigh of relief, thankful that he didn't need to use any more Kidōon the boy.

_'Phew, that was close.'_, he thought as he placed Zangetsu on his back with his right hand, the cloth around the hilt of the cleaver extending as it wrapped itself up and attached to Naruto's back automatically.

"Gaara there's no need to continue this. Just stop fighting and I can fix your seal so that you can sleep. There's no need to keep fighting any more.", Naruto almost pleaded with the enraged redhead, who laughed at him as Naruto made his way towards him.

"I will not stop fighting, it's the only way I can prove I exist! I love for no-one but myself and I will only fight for myself! You hear me Uzumaki!", Gaara spat at the blonde, who sighed as he got ever more closer to the host of the Ichibi.

He was only a meter away before Gaara sent a blast of KI at Naruto, who froze and jumped back in surprise when a column of sand shot up from the ground, obscuring Gaara from view. A moment or two passed by until the dust and sand started to settle, though Naruto still couldn't see Gaara.

"I'm free baby!", a different more humour-filled and wily voice shouted out as the sand and dust revealed a the Ichibi in his biju form. The sight of the large biju caused many of the ninja on both sides to stop fighting to stare in fright, most of those affected were Konoha ninja as it reminded them of the Kyuubi's attack thirteen years ago.

"Crap.", Naruto muttered, though Shukaku was still able to hear him.

"Oh is this the little insect who set me free. Well I am thankful, so to repay you I'll kill you as fast and painlessly as possible. After that I kill all these other insects, oh the joy of spilling their blood.", Shukaku squealed as he attempted to slam his right hand on top of Naruto, but failed due to Naruto using _Shunpo_ to escape and reappear on the roof of the stadium. When everyone saw him reappear they stared at him wondering what he was going to do next. Some were thinking he would run and save his own skin, whilst others' thought he would die from trying to fight a biju since it cost the Yondaime his life just to seal the Kyuubi, how would a child defeat something that was only 1/9 as strong.

"This is going to be more difficult than I anticipated.", Naruto said to himself as he bit his right thumb, allowing a small amount of blood to leak from it. He then proceeded to form the following handseals, those who recognised the jutsu were stunned that someone would share their summoning contract with the boy and wondered which one it was.

Boar...Dog...Bird...Monkey...Ram.

"_Kuchiyose no Jutsu! (Summoning Technique!)_", Naruto then slammed his right hand, open palm faced down, as he shouted the name of the jutsu. An array of symbols stretched from his hand to form a circle with a cross running through it and a large cloud of smoke covered the entire stadium, causing everyone to be temporarily blinded from the smoke so they couldn't see what had been summoned.

"Gaki why did you summon me here?!", an annoyed voice boomed as many of ninja who recognised the voice widened their eyes in shock.

'It couldn't be.', many thought as the smoke dissipated, showing a giant red toad wearing a large blue happi vest with the kanji for 'boss' on the back, a white sash, he had a kiseru pipe in his mouth and a huge tanto blade was strapped on his right hip. Apart from this he had yellow eyes with a horizontal bar for a pupil and had a scar over his left eye, but could still see through it. To many who knew of the toad summons they knew they were staring at the toad boss, Gamabunta, the toad that aided in helping the Yondaime seal away the Kyuubi.

_'Why is he helping the Kyuubi-gaki?'_, many of the Naruto-haters thought, as it seemed absurd for toads to ally themselves with someone who they believed was their enemy, especially after the scar the Kyuubi left during their fight. To many of the others though they were seeing déjà vu, in fact all they had to do was imagine an older Naruto, with no whiskers and wearing a white coat with red flames on the bottom and you had yourself a clone of the Yondaime standing there on top of his head.

Naruto looked sheepish and rubbed the back of his head with his left arm as he replied.

"Well you see I need a little help with the tanuki over there and I was wondering if you could help me out here. If not then could you at least force him to outside of Konoha?", Naruto informed the toad as he pointed at Shukaku with his right index finger.

Gamabunta looked at what Naruto was indicating at and knew immediately that it was Shukaku and despite being way weaker than the Kyuubi he was still a powerful bijū when not compared to the other bijū. Sighing he took a puff of smoke from his pipe before replying.

"Very well I'll give you a hand, but after this mess is over with you and I are having a drink. Only after that will I acknowledge you as one of my summoners. Got it gaki?", he grumbled as he prepared himself for the coming fight.

"S-Sure toad boss.", Naruto stuttered slightly surprised since given Gamabunta's attitude didn't portray him as the type to help out a lot when it didn't seem worth his time.

Gamabunta gave a grunt in response before launching himself at the bijū, preparing to give a toad version of Gai's Dynamic Entry.

"I'll skin you when I'm done with you. _Fūton: Renkūdan! (Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet!)_", Shukaku said as he took a deep breath before raising his right arm and hitting his stomach, causing a ball of highly compressed wind to shoot from his mouth at the incoming toad and blonde.

Seeing the _Renkūdan _heading straight for them Naruto gripped Zangetsu with his right hand as he quickly pulled it from his back and into an immediate downward swing, the cloth unwrapping itself instantly.

"_Getsuga Tenshō!_", an arc of chakra formed and sped towards the oncoming _Renkūdan_. When the two clashed it caused an explosion that was large enough to take out a whole building and pushing dust up between the two combatants, robbing them of their view from each other.

"Is he dead?", Shukaku asked to himself as he moved closer towards the smoke, determined to see a dead toad...

...WHAM...

...Only to be kicked in the face from a still flying Gamabunta, who had been able to continue his kick when the two jutsu had clashed.

"Ah!", Shukaku yelled as he was propelled off of his feet and out of Konoha into the surrounding forest, uprooting many of the trees in the process.

As soon as Gamabunta landed he crouched down and made a huge leap to stay with the tanuki to stop from coming back to the village.

Shukaku got his bearings back as he saw Gamabunta leap up into the air towards. Standing up he saw his chance and raised his right arm again.

"_Fūton: Renkūdan!_", this time he fired three _Renkūdan_ towards the toad, who cursed for being in the air.

"_Suiton: Teppōdama! (Water Release: Gunshot!)_", the toad boss's mouth expanded slightly before he spat out two large spheres that cancelled out two of the Renkudan. The result of the clashes caused showers of rain and gale force winds to the surrounding forest, giving the impression of a small storm.

"You missed one!", Naruto warned Gamabunta with a slightly worried as the third _Renkūdan_ was still heading towards them in the air.

"I know gaki!", Gamabunta shouted, panicking slightly.

Naruto wondered what the best course of action was. He could use _Getsuga Tenshō _again, but they couldn't afford to have the smoke blocking their view of Shukaku. What they needed was something that defended them against the _Renkūdan_, but also allowed them to still see him.

A thought then struck him, raising his right open palm to face the oncoming _Renkūdan_ he gathered chakra to perform his next kido.

"_Bakudō No. 39: Enkōsen! (Way of Binding No. 39: Round Lock Fan!)_", a round yellow shield formed in front of both summon and summoner as the _Renkūdan_ collided with the kidō. The shield was able to stop the wind jutsu but not without receiving damage as well, given by the large amount of cracks that had been made to the kidō. When the _Renkūdan_ was negated Naruto deactivated the shield and panted slightly from having used up so much chakra for a low-medium kidō but had to spread to out to defend him and Gamabunta.

"Thanks gaki.", Gamabunta said as he unsheathed his tanto with his right webbed hand and placing his left hand on the handle making a stabbing motion below him on the bijū.

"Don't mention it.", Naruto replied as the toad boss finished descending down on the tanuki and stabbed Shukaku through the chest.

"Ack!", Shukaku grunted out as he felt a sharp pain in his chest from the toad boss's tanto. He recovered quickly though as he then grabbed hold of the huge toad with both of his claws, putting the two beings in a grapple stalemate with neither one moving.

"Okay gaki you know what you need to do. Wake up the container while I'll keep Shukaku here from moving.", Gamabunta informed the blonde, who nodded and used Shunpo to reach Shukaku's left claw and started running along it to reach the sleeping Gaara on Shukaku's forehead.

"Don't think I can't stop you, you insect!", Shukaku said as tendrils of sand started to form along Naruto's path, trying to either impale him of crush him.

"Man this again.", Naruto muttered as he used a series of Shunpos to reach Gaara. When he finally reached him Naruto pulled Zangetsu up above his head and proceeded to bring it down on the redhead, however whilst in mid-swing he flipped the blade over so that the blunt edge hit Gaara squarely on the head, forcing the boy to wake up.

"Wake up!", Naruto yelled. Gaara's eyes opened in shock and pain as he felt Shukaku's influence being pulled back into his seal.

"No! Come on I just got here!...(Growls)...Just you wait insect, when I get out here again you're the first insect I'll crush before I kill all of those close to you!", were Shukaku's final words as his form started to break apart. First his claws fell away and then the rest of his body followed until both Naruto and a barely conscious Gaara were left to fall and land in a huge pile of sand in the place of what was once a forest.

"Well I'm done here. Remember our drink later on gaki.", Gamabunta then sheathed his tanto and dispersed into smoke as he went back to Mount Myōboku.

Gaara groaned slightly when the smoke faded. Opening his groggily eyes he saw the blue sky and shining sun. He easily deduced that he was sprawled out on his back and had blood running down his forehead from Naruto's blow to his head and his wound from the lightening attack back in the arena.

Looking to his right he saw Naruto standing and leaning against Zangetsu, that was stabbed in the ground, with his right arm. The blonde was sweating and panting, obviously from having to use all those jutsu constantly throughout the fight, but there were no wounds on him physically apart from a few scratches. He noticed also that the blonde was looking at him intently and was slowly making his way to him, using Zangetsu as a make-shift crutch.

"S-Stay away from me!", Gaara yelled in panic and started struggling to try and stand, scared for the first time since his uncle tried to kill him when he was younger.

"It hurts doesn't it? Being all alone, nobody to care for you.", Naruto said as he stopped next to Gaara's prone form. When he did Gaara stopped struggling slightly and looked into Naruto's eyes to see something akin to sympathy. Those blue orbs that seemed to be able to bore into anyone's soul and see their true selves was looking into Gaara's panicked emerald ones. The redhead could have sworn that he was reading his mind when he spoke again.

"You and I are a lot like in some ways. The differences being quite obvious such as your status being known by everyone and having assassination attempts on you by your own father. Where as I was beaten on the Kyuubi festival and don't have the ability to demand for things and expect to get away with it.", Naruto continued as Gaara stopped struggling completely, wanting to hear the rest of the explanation.

"Just like you I was angry to the villagers. I hated them with all of my being but hid it under the mask of an idiot that dreamed of being Hokage. Then one day our team was assigned a C-rank mission to protect a bridge builder from bandits as he finished constructing his bridge. On the way we ran into ninja and we decided to continue, despite the fact that the mission was now upgraded to an A-rank. Fast-forwarding to the client's house we were criticised and told that we knew nothing of suffering. That didn't sit well with me, so after I verbally brought the person who criticised us down a peg I stormed out to vent my frustrations on a tree or something with training. I kept training until I passed out and when I awoke I met someone who gave me some interesting advice. Do you know what it was?", Naruto asked with Gaara shaking his head in response. He then gave a small smile as he remembered the words Haku told him during the mission to Nami no Kuni (The Land of Waves).

"He said people who fight to protect those close to them gain true strength. After that he was killed by Kakashi-san, trying to protect his master when they were trying to kill our client. Now after looking back on those words and my past I have to agree with him as it was only my drive to keep the people close to me safe that I became strong. You can do same.", Naruto said as a small flashback of him saving Iruka from Mizuki sprung to mind.

"I have no precious people. I will always be alone.", Gaara replied flatly and diverted his eyes from Naruto's blue ones as he began to think that this was all for nothing. That he had worked his hopes up just to have them trampled on.

To his surprise though he heard a chuckle and became confused at how this was funny.

"Gaara my friend we all have people who we cherish. You just have to look in the right places.", Naruto said. Gaara turned his head and opened his mouth to reply but to his astonishment there was no trace of Naruto, not even his chakra signature was detectable.

_'What did he mean by that?'_, wondered as he rested against the suns rays.

"Gaara!", he heard...Temari shout. Blinking for a second he saw his sister and brother arrive. Both injured but nothing more than cuts, scratches and bruises that didn't need any attention. Also their attire was very roughed up from the battles they had been a part of, most notably Temari's _Kyodai Sensu (Giant Folding Fan)_ had a few dents in it and Kankuro's _Karasu (Crow)_ was both damaged with losing two of it's arms and an eye.

When Temari and Kankuro arrived they saw Gaara's state and quickly went to his side. Temari applied bandages to the wound on his shoulder.

"Gaara, thank goodness you're all right. We thought you were dead.", Temari exclaimed as she finished bandaging his wound. It would still need treatment but it was not leaking any more blood, that Temari was grateful for.

Gaara meanwhile was stunned at the affection his siblings were giving to him. It was such an alien concept that he wanted to push them away on reflex, but suppressed it when the attention felt good to him.

_'Maybe he's right. Maybe if I want to I can have people to protect as well.'_, he thought as Kankuro lifted his left over his shoulders so that he could travel through the treetops.

"Come on little brother lets go home.", Kankuro grunted as he and Temari did one more survey of the area to make sure they would not be followed before leaping through the trees to meet up with their sensei, Baki.

"T-Temari, K-Kankuro, I'm sorry for all that I've done.", The redhead whispered, though his siblings still heard him as they turned to look at him in shock. This was the first time they had heard him apologise for anything, the only other times he talked usually involving the sentence 'I'll kill you'.

Glancing at each other they came a unspoken agreement.

"No worries little brother.", Kankuro said, focusing on the route ahead and making sure that they would meet up with their sensei at the right place.

"Yeah Gaara we're just glad your safe.", Temari added with a smile, though on the inside she was thinking on what happened during Naruto and Gaara's fight.

_'I hope we can meet again Naruto Uzumaki, you sure are interesting.'_, she thought with a slight blush.

Kankuro saw the blush and smirked a little at seeing his older sister blush like an Academy student.

_'Must be about that Uzumaki kid.'_, he summarised as the trio kept continued on with their journey.

When Naruto sensed Temari and Kankuro arriving he hid himself in a tree opposite. Then he suppressed his chakra signature so that not even Shukaku could sense him. He saw Temari shouted out Gaara's name and smiled when he saw the worried looks on their faces as Temari bandaged Gaara and Kankuro helped with moving him.

_'Like I said Gaara, we all have people we cherish.'_, he inwardly repeated.

_'You sure that was a good idea?'_, a voice spoke within his mind.

_'Maybe, maybe not. I may have made an enemy or an ally. All I can do is trust that they become my ally and not my enemy again.'_, he replied as his vision started to blur from the exhaustion. A moment later he sensed Jiraiya appear next to him, though he looked sad about saomething.

"Hey gaki, I saw the fight between you and the redhead. Gotta it sure brought back some memories.", he said as he remembered the similar situation between his first student and the Kyuubi.

"Yeah well at least this time the bijū was sealed already and nobody was killed from him either.", Naruto scoffed as the sannin scratched his chin in thought.

"Yeah you're right about that. Anyway the good news is that Suna and Oto have been defeated and they withdrawing. It seems Orochimaru killed their Yondaime Kazekage and took on his identity so that he could have Suna join in on the invasion. They'll likely try to arrange an alliance again with us, considering they believed they were following their leader's orders and not those of an S-class nuke-nin. The bad news is that...", Jiraiya stalled, unable to gather enough courage to speak any more.

"What bad news?", Naruto asked, eyes narrowing in suspicion. When Jiraiya spoke again it was shown to be clearly strained.

"...Sarutobi-sensei died whilst sealing away Orochimaru's ability to use nin and genjutsu.", Jiraiya finished explaining as Naruto's blue eyes widened. The old man was dead?

_'H-How could that have happened? The Hokage is supposed to be the strongest ninja in the village.'_, Naruto thought inwardly as his form started to shake, from tiredness or sadness no one could tell.

_'It would have happened sooner or later. He may have been the strongest ninja in the village, but he was still an old man. His health was only getting worse as time went by so it was no surprise that the Sandaime died at the hands of some one younger. Tragic? Yes but surprised? No.'_, the voice from before said, sadness in their voice but still stoic all the same.

_'Still he was one of the only people who saw me as me and not the Kyuubi.'_, Naruto inwardly replied as he cut off his connection with the other voice in his head.

Jiraiya looked at the boy in worry as he saw the shocked then sadness emotions in his eyes at the news. He saw the boy shaking and knew that the boy was both mentally and physically exhausted from the events of today.

"Come on gaki lets get you back home. You need the rest, especially after fighting Neji and a Shukaku possessed Gaara even I would have been slightly winded from fighting Gaara alone.", Jiraiya said as Naruto nodded numbly.

"Sure...", Naruto drawled out before passing out from exhaustion. He was about to fall forwards to the ground but didn't because of an arm catching him. Using whatever strength he had left he looked to his right to see Jiraiya now standing next to him, facing in his opposite direction and spreading his right arm across his chest so that he didn't fall over.

"Thanks, Ero-sennin.", he whispered before he finally closed his eyes as his consciousness faded away.

"Ungrateful gaki.", Jiraiya said in a quiet tone but still shook his head with a small smile. He picked Naruto up piggy-back style and made his way back to the village where he would drop Naruto off to his apartment.

* * *

**_The next day: Top of the Hokage Tower..._**

"Heh, heh, heh. Oh look at that blonde with the huge rack and that brunette with the nice ass.", Jiraiya giggled perversely, looking through his telescope from the edge of the Hokage Tower. He was crouched behind the railing and had his scroll that he carried with him propped up on the railing as he was doing his 'research'.

"Ahem...Jiraiya.", an old man's voice coughed behind, making Jiraiya's expression annoyed as he turned to face the village Elders, Mitokado Homura and Koharu Utatane.

Homura had grey slightly spiked hair, beard, wore glasses and would usually have a frown on his. His clothes mainly consisted on something similar to the Sandaime's Hokage robes. His partner, Koharu, is similar in appearance-wise with most crucial differences being that she didn't wear glasses and had her hair done up into two small buns with a long needle with oriental pieces being used to keep her hair up. Them along with the Civilian and Shinobi councils made up the Village council. Initially they were made to advise the Hokage on matters on which the Hokage found difficulty in completely understanding, but ever since the Kyuubi's attack they started to gain more power than before and had made many problems for the Hokage, namely the civilians and the elders. A big problem being the lower standards the Academy obtained from changing the curriculum to focus more on Academic theories and history, claiming that it would help civilian-born students be more able to pass...

...Oh they did pass, but because of their lack of practical skills they were quickly returning home from their first C-rank mission in body-bags.

"So what do the prestigious Elders want with little old me?", Jiraiya asked, his annoyed expression turning into a cheerful one, although all the Elders knew that he was anything but cheerful.

Using his right hand to push his glasses up the bridge of his nose Homura cleared his throat before speaking.

"Jiraiya as you know after the attack from Suna and Oto, Sarutobi was killed-"

"That's Hokage-sama to you.", Jiraiya interrupted, his tone showing no room for argument.

"Well, the attack from Suna and Oto that killed Hokage-sama, the council was called to elect a new Hokage since Sandaime-sama did not choose a successor. In the end it was decided that you should be the Godaime Hokage.", Homura finished after making his correction.

For a moment nothing happened. Jiraiya was staring intensively at the two, making a shiver run down their spines though they didn't show it.

"Not interested.", Jiraiya finally said causing the Homura and Utatane flinch at his declaration. Upon realising what he said Koharu exploded.

"What do you mean 'Not interested'?", she demanded as the man stared at the sky and counted down with his left fingers.

"One: I have no desire to be stuck in an office doing paperwork. Two: I have a spy network to run and that requires me to leave the village from time-to-time, especially since some of my contacts will only speak to me and no one else. Third: If I were to become the Hokage the first thing I would do is make a law stating that all kunoichi must pose for my Icha Icha books. Fourth: Me and Sarutobi-sensei agreed that should he die then someone else would become the Godaime. Then fifth: I do not want to deal with the council whining in my ears every other day about one thing or another.", Jiraiya explained as he saw their reactions.

Both Koharu and Mitokado had a light pink tint on their cheeks at Jiraiya's third reason and were openly glaring when they heard his final reason.

"If you will not take up the position then who will?", Mitokado asked.

"Tsunade of course. I mean she's related to the Shodaime and Nidaime, so she has the right background. She is a sannin as am I, so she meets the strength requirement. Then finally unlike me she has actually had experience of dealing with politics because of her blood-relatives.", Jiraiys suggested.

"But she hasn't been in the village for over 13 years, plus her...hobbies are not what you call appealing.", Koharu countered, remembering the Senju's habit of drinking and gambling.

"Don't you worry about that. I will find Tsunade, that you can be assured of, and I already have a plan to convince her to come back to Konoha. I will also be bringing along my apprentice with me and no I will not let you have a say in this matter. Tsunade will become the Godaime Hokage and I will not let you have any say in who I choose as my apprentice.", Jiraiya said decisively, cutting off the Elders response to his choice of apprentice. They had been angry that the man had not chosen someone who they believed to be more deserving of the title and even though they didn't approve of Naruto they knew they didn't have any legal control over a sannin and who they chose to teach.

"Very well then Tsunade will become the Godaime Hokage and you are officially Naruto Uzumaki's sensei, replacing Kakashi Hatake. Now when will the two of you be heading out to search for her?", Mitokado asked, sighing in defeat.

Picking up the large scroll Jiraiya strapped it to his back, stood up and stretched to wake up his muscles from the crouching.

"Tomorrow after Sarutobi-sensei's funeral.", Jiraiya said as he walked between the two Elders and then disappeared using the Shunshin no Jutsu.

* * *

**_Next day: Naruto's apartment..._**

Naruto's eyes opened slowly as he woke up from passing out. Propping himself up on his right arm, he used his left arm to rub the sleep from his eyes before yawning and looking at his surroundings. He saw the familiar scenery of his bedroom in his apartment and that Zangetsu was leaning against the wall next to him.

_'Ero-sennin must've brought me here.'_, he thought as he yawned again, still a bit tired after his fight in the invasion. Standing up from his bed he noticed that he was still in his clothes from before and decided to change into a fresher a pair. Once he was changed he went and made himself some breakfast. Due to still being tired Naruto decided to have some toast and cereal with a glass of water to wake him up some more.

"Up already huh?"

"Hey Ero-sennin.", Naruto said nonchalantly as the white-haired Toad Sage jumped through his window and then landed on the floor.

"Stop calling me that!", Jiraiya said loudly with a scowl at the nickname.

"Stop peeking on women then.", Naruto rebuked passively as he stood up and deposited his crockery in the sink to be washed at a later date.

"I can't do that I need to peep in order to write my pieces of art. Besides I'm a super-pervert.", exclaimed a goofy looking Jiraiya.

"Hence the name Ero-sennin.", Naruto said, still impassive, though he was now leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

Jiraiya mumbled something about 'no respect these days' before going onto more serious things.

"So kid, after Sarutobi-sensei's funeral you and I are going on a mission to bring back my other team-mate, Tsunade Senju, to become the Godaime. Pack for a long-term S-rank mission and meet me at the gates two hours after the funeral.", Jiraiya explained before using Shunshin no Jutsu and disappearing in a cloud of smoke.

When he was gone Naruto sighed before changing again, but this time into funeral clothes. When he was dressed his hitai-ate was tied loosely around his neck, he had a black T-shirt, black trousers and black shinobi sandals.

_'Time to say goodbye old man.'_

* * *

**_Top of the Hokage's Tower..._**

"Men and women and Konohagakure no Sato! Today is a day of mourning as we say goodbye to our dearest loved ones who died in the invasion and protected what was precious to them...", Mitokado started as he gave a speech in respect to the dead. Behind him was a white covered table that held the pictures of the dead. Some of the pictures even had pieces of personal belongings such as a necklace or most commonly a hitai-ate. The one that really stood out was the Sandaime's picture that was larger than all of the others in the centre of the row of pictures, his Hokage hate being in front of it as his personal affection.

The ninja stood in rows. The genin were in the front with their jonin sensei behind them. Standing along with the genin were Konohamaru and his friends, Udon and Meogi. Iruka was also with them, comforting the late Sandaime's grandson.

Behind the jonin sensei were the other jonin, various council members and the department heads. The rest of the ninja were down outside the tower along with the civilians. Only the ANBU were not present and that was because they were providing the security to ensure no other ninja tried to sneak their way into the village.

Naruto gazed at the pictures in front of them and waited for the genin to be called upon to place a flower down on the table to show their respect. When it was his turn he sensed the glares being sent at him from numerous ninja and civilians and mentally shook his head.

_'They can't even stop hating me at a funeral, though they've probably come up with some kind of theory that it was my fault somehow.'_, Naruto placed his flower down and glanced one more time at the Sandaime's kind and gentle face.

_'Old man as much as I believed you were foolish when it came to me, I know that you saw me for me and not the Kyuubi and for that I thank you.'_, Naruto thought as he went back to his original thought. When he was back with the crowd he saw that it started to rain.

"Even the heavens weep.", he heard Asuma mutter.

_'I agree.'_, Naruto thought as he looked up to the sky and allowed a few drops of rain to fall on his cheeks, giving him the impression of crying.

When the funeral was over everyone was dismissed and went back to help the village recover from the invasion.

"Hey Naruto.", Kakashi called out with Sasuke and Sakura on his left and right respectively.

Naruto ignored him and used _Shunpo_ to get away leaving a blinking jonin, an angry Uchiha and a fuming Haruno.

"Where'd that baka go?", Sakura huffed as Kakashi rubbed the back of his head in thought.

"Well Naruto did care about the Sandaime a lot so I'm guessing he's still upset over his death."

"Hn, weakling. Come on Kakashi I want to learn more jutsu.", Sasuke scoffed as he walked back to the Uchiha compound to get changed into his normal clothes.

Kakashi sighed but nodded as he and Sakura followed him.

* * *

**_Two hours later: Konoha gates..._**

Jiraiya stood up against one of the large gates in thought as he waited for his apprentice to show up.

"Hey Ero-sennin."

Jiraiya looked to his left to see Naruto standing there in his normal shukasku clothes, with Zangetsu on his back and the hilt peeking out from his right shoulder.

"Ready gaki."

"Sure am."

* * *

**_Unknown location..._**

"You know of your mission Itachi, Kisame."

"Yes Leader-sama."

"Your target is now on the move and is outside the village. Capture him, but be warned he has Jiraiya of the Sannin protecting him. Your best option would be to lead Jiraiya away from the jinchuriki so that he is on his own."

"Yes Leader-sama."


End file.
